BMW officially confirms M3 Touring
Friday, 14 August 2020
Well, that didn’t take long: hot on the heels of the first rumours it might be working on one, BMW has officially confirmed the first-ever M3 Touring is under development, though we won’t see it for a little bit.
No major details were announced, aside from the obvious increase in luggage capacity. But, being based on the next-gen M3, we have a good indication of power.
Assuming no major changes have been made, and we have no reason to believe there have, the M3 Touring will use the M3’s 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six making 375kW/650Nm in full-fat Competition spec.
BMW added: “… wide axles, conspicuously large front air intakes and four exhaust tailpipes at the rear will leave no doubt that this is a thoroughbred M machine.”
**READ MORE:
* Is BMW finally giving us an M3 wagon?
* BMW spills details on upcoming 4 Series
* New BMW M2 to usher in hotter 1 and 2 Series
**
We would go on to assume there won’t be a less powerful, rear-driven, manually shifted Pure version, but we would be happy to be proven wrong too. In any case, there will be an all-wheel drive, dual-clutch automatic version when the Touring launches.
As to when that might be, BMW only said that the Touring is “still in the early stage of its approximately two-year series development process.” That means a full reveal won’t happen until 2022 at the earliest.
Until then, the closest we currently get is the M340i xDrive Touring, a 275kW/550Nm wagon. It will hit 100kmh in a not-exactly-slow 4.5 seconds.
The normal M3 and M4 models are due to launch in September 2020. Both will get the huge new sniffer first shown on the new 4 Series, for better or worse.
The M cars will later be joined by the all-electric i4, which will sit atop the 3/4 Series performance tree.